09 To the Nines (9 page)

I grimaced at Lula. “Good thing you're not hysterical.”

“You bet your sweet ass,” Lula said.

A Trenton PD blue and white angled to a stop, lights flashing. Seconds later, another blue and white pulled in. Carl Costanza was riding shotgun in the second car. He rolled his eyes when he saw me and reached for the radio. Calling Joe, I thought. His partner, Big Dog, ambled over.

“Holy crap,” Big Dog said when he saw Howie. “Holy moly.” He looked over at me and winced. “Did you shoot him?”

“No!”

“I got to get out of here,” Lula said. “Cops and dead people give me diarrhea. Anybody wants to talk to me, they can send me a letter. I didn't see anything anyway. I was getting extra sauce for my chicken nuggets. I don't suppose you'd want to give me your car keys?” she asked me. “I'm starting to feel transference coming on again. I need a doughnut, Calm me down.”

Costanza was pushing people around, laying out crime scene tape. An EMS truck arrived, followed by a plainclothes cop car and Morelli's POS. Morelli jogged over to me. “Are you okay?”

“Pretty much. I'm a little rattled.” “No bullet holes?”

“Not in me. Howie wasn't so lucky.”

Morelli looked down at Howie. “You didn't shoot him, did you? Tell me you didn't shoot him.” “I didn't shoot him. I never even carry a gun!” Morelli dropped his eyes to my waist. “Looks to me like you're carrying one now.” Shit. I'd forgotten about the gun.

“Well, I almost never carry a gun,” I said, doing my best to smooth out the bulge in my T-shirt. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed. “Maybe I should lose the gun,” I said to Morelli. “There might be a problem.” “Besides carrying concealed without a permit?” “It might not be registered.”

“Let me guess. Ranger gave you the gun.” Morelli stared down at his feet and shook his head. He muttered something indiscernible, possibly in Italian. I opened my mouth to speak and he held a hand up. “Don't say anything,” he said, “I'm working hard here. Notice I'm not ranting over the fact that not only are you partners with Ranger, but you were stupid enough to take a gun from him.”

I waited patiently. When Morelli mutters in Italian it's a good idea to give him some room.

“Okay,” he said, “this is what we're going to do. We're going to walk over to my car. You're going to get in, take the gun out of your goddamn pants, and slide the gun under the front seat. Then you're going to tell me what happened.”

An hour later, I was still sitting in the car, waiting for Morelli to leave the scene, when my cell phone rang.

It was my mother. “I heard you shot someone,” she said. “You've got to stop shooting people. Elaine Minardi's daughter never shoots anyone. Lucille Rice's daughter never shoots anyone. Why do I have to be the one to have a daughter who shoots people?”

“I didn't shoot anyone.”

“Then you can come to dinner.”

“Sure.”

“That was too easy,” my mother said. “Somethings wrong. Omigod, you really did shoot someone, didn't you?”

“I didn't shoot anyone,” I yelled at her. And I disconnected.

Morelli opened the driver's side door and angled himself behind the wheel. “Your mother?”

I sagged in the seat. “This is turning into a really long day. I told my mother I'd show up for dinner.”

“Let's go over this one more time,” Morelli said.

“One of Singh's coworkers told me Singh tried to make a phone call to Howie the day before he disappeared. I questioned Howie just now and he denied knowing Singh. I'm pretty sure he was lying. And when I told him Singh was missing I could swear he looked relieved. He ended the interview by telling me Americans are crazy. He stood to go inside and pop pop ... he was dead.”

“Only two shots.”

“That's all I heard.”

“Anything else?”

“Off the record?”

“Oh boy,” Joe said. “I hate when a conversation with you starts like that.”

“I happened to accidentally wander into Howie's apartment this morning.”

“I don't want to hear this,” Morelli said. “They're going to go to Howie's apartment and dust for prints and you're going to be all over the place.”

I chewed on my lower lip. Unfortunate timing. Who knew Howie would get killed?

Morelli raised eyebrows in question. “So?”

“The apartment is clean,” I told him. “No sign that Singh's been there. No diary detailing secret activities. No hastily scribbled notes that someone wanted him dead. No evidence of drugs. No weapons.”

“It could have been a random shooting,” Morelli said. “This isn't a great neighborhood.”

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yeah.”

Not for a single second did either of us believe that to be true. Deep inside I knew Howie's death was tied to Singh and to me. That he was killed in my presence wasn't a good thing.

Morelli's eyes softened and he ran a fingertip along my jaw line. “Are you sure you're okay?”

“Yeah. I'm okay.” And I was . . . sort of. My hands had stopped shaking and the pain in my chest was subsiding. But I knew that somewhere hiding in my head were sad thoughts of Howie. The sadness would creep forward and I would cram it back into crevices thick with brain gunk. I'm a firm believer in the value of denial. Anger, passion, and fear spill out of me in real time. Sadness I save until the edge dulls. Someday three months from now I'll stroll down the cereal aisle of a supermarket and burst into tears for Howie, a man I didn't even know, for crissake. I'll stand in front of the cereal boxes and blow my nose and blink the tears out of my eyes so no one realizes I'm an emotional idiot. I mean, what about Howie's life? What was it like? Then I'll think about Howie's death and I'll go hollow inside. And then I'll go to the freezer section and get a tub of coffee-flavored Haagen-Dazs ice cream and eat it all.

Morelli turned the engine over and chugged out of the lot. “I'll take you back to the office so you can get your car. I have paperwork to do at the station. If I'm not home by five-thirty, go to dinner without me. I'll catch up with you as soon as I can.”

Lula and Connie weren't looking happy when I got to the office.

“We only have a couple days left before everyone finds out Singh's skipped,” Connie said. “Vinnie's freaking. He's locked in his office with a bottle of gin and the real estate section from the Scottsdale paper.”

“I don't need this cranky shit he's pulling, either,” Lula said. “I had a bad day. I didn't lose any weight and the guy we wanted to talk to got dead. And every time I think about poor ol' Howie I get hungry on account of I'm a comfort eater. I relieve my stress with comfort food.”

“You've eaten everything but the desk,” Connie said. “It'd be cheaper to get you addicted to drugs.”

Vinnie stuck his head out his office door. “You get one crappy lead and he gets himself killed,” Vinnie yelled at me. “What's with that?” And he pulled his head back into his office and slammed the door shut.

“See, that's what I mean,” Lula said. “Makes me want some macaroni and cheese.”

Vinnie stuck his head out of his office again. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to say that. I meant to say. . . uh, I'm glad you're not hurt.”

We all went silent, thinking about how awful it actually had been. And how it could have been worse.

“The world s a crazy place,” Lula finally said.

I needed to get out and do something to take my mind off Howie. My car keys were lying on Connie's desk. I pocketed the keys and gave my shoulder bag a hitch up. “I'm heading out to talk to the Apusenjas. Nonnie should be getting home from work soon.”

“I'll go with you,” Lula said. “I'm not letting you go out alone.”

Nonnie was home when I arrived. She answered the door on my second knock and peered out at me, first surprised, then cautiously happy. “Did you find him?” she asked. “Did you find Boo?”

“I haven't found him, but I have something I'd like to run by you. Did Samuel ever mention a man named Howie?”

“No. I've never heard him speak of Howie.”

“Samuel was on the computer all the time. Did you ever get a chance to see what he was doing? Did he get mail? Do you think he might have gotten email from Howie?”

“I saw a mail from work one time. Samuel was at the kitchen table. He sometimes preferred to sit there because his room was small. I came to the kitchen for a glass of tea and I passed behind him. He was typing a letter to someone named Susan. The letter was nothing, really. It only said thank you for the help. Samuel said it was work related. That is the only time I have seen any of his computer mails.”

“Did he ever get mail from the post office?”

“He received a few letters from his parents in India. My mother would know more of that. She collects the mail. Would you like to talk to my mother?”

“No!”

“Who is that?” Mrs. Apusenja called from the hall.

Lula and I put our heads down and took a deep breath.

“It is two women from the bonds agency,” Nonnie said.

Mrs. Apusenja rumbled to the door and elbowed Nonnie aside. “What do you want? Have you found Samuel?”

“I had a couple questions to ask Nonnie,” I said.

“Where is the man named Ranger?” Mrs. Apusenja said. “I can tell you are just his worthless assistant. And who is this fat woman with you?”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “There was a time when I would have kicked your nasty ass for calling me fat, but I'm on a diet to be a supermodel and I'm above all that now.”

“Such language,” Mrs. Apusenja said. “Just as I would expect from sluts.”

“Hey, watch who you're calling a slut,” Lula said. “You're starting to get on my nerves.”

“Get off my porch,” Mrs. Apusenja said. And she shoved Lula.

“Hunh,” Lula said. And she gave Mrs. Apusenja a shot to the shoulder that rocked her back on her heels.

“Disrespectful whore,” Mrs. Apusenja said to Lula. And she slapped her.

This was where I took two steps back.

Lula grabbed Mrs. Apusenja by the hair and the two of them stumbled off the porch to the small front yard. There was a lot of bitch slapping and name calling and hair pulling. Nonnie was shouting for them to stop and I had my stun gun in my hand just in case it looked like Lula was going to lose.

An old lady tottered out of the house next door and turned her garden hose on Lula and Mrs. Apusenja. Lula and Mrs. Apusenja broke apart sputtering. Mrs. Apusenja turned tail and scuttled into her house, her soaked sari leaving a trail of water behind her that looked like slug slime.

The old lady shut the water off at the spigot on her front porch. “That was fun,” she said. And she disappeared into her house.

Lula squished to the car and climbed in. “I could have taken her if I'd had more time,” Lula said.

I dropped Lula off at the office and drove on autopilot to Hamilton and eased into the stream of traffic. Hamilton is full of lights and small businesses. It's a road that leads to everything and everywhere and at this time of the day it was clogged with cars going nowhere. I turned from Hamilton, cut through a couple side streets, and swung into my apartment building lot. I parked and looked up at my building and realized I'd driven myself to the wrong place. I wasn't living here these days. I was living with Morelli. I thunked my head on the steering wheel. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

I was on the third thunk when the passenger side door swung open and Ranger took the seat next to me. “You should be careful,” Ranger said. “You'll shake something loose in there.”

“I didn't see you in the lot when I pulled in,” I said. “Were you waiting for me to come home?”

“I followed you, babe. I picked you up a block from the office. You should check your mirrors once in a while. Could have been a bad guy on your tail.”

“And you're a good guy?”

Ranger smiled. “Are you parked here for any special reason? I thought you moved in with Morelli.”

“Navigation error. My mind wasn't on my driving.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“The shooting?”

“Yeah,” Ranger said. “And anything else I should know about.”

I told him about the shooting and then I told him about the flowers and the photos.

“I could keep you safer than Morelli,” Ranger said.

I believed him. But I would also be more restricted. Ranger would lock me up in a safe house and keep a guard with me 24-7. Ranger had a small army of guys working for him who made Marine commandos look like a bunch of sissies.

“I'm okay for now. Is there any word on the street about Bart Cone? Like does he rape and murder women?”

“The street doesn't talk about Bart Cone. The street doesn't even know Bart Cone. The Cone brothers run a tight factory and pay their bills on time. I had Tank ask around. The only interesting thing he turned up was the murder inquiry. Two months after the police dropped Bart as a suspect, Bart's wife left him. He's the nuts-and-bolts guy at the factory. Has an engineering degree from MIT. Smart. Serious. Private. The direct opposite of Clyde, who spends most of his day reading comic books and gets together several times a week with his friends to play Magic.”

“Magic?”

“It's one of those role-playing card games.”

“Like Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Similar. Andrew is the people person. Manages the human resources side of the business. He's been married for ten years. Has two kids, ages seven and nine.” Rangers pager went off and he checked the readout. “Do you have any candidates for the flowers and photos?”

“I've made my share of enemies since I've had this job. No one stands out. Bart Cone crossed my mind. The business with the murder is hard to ignore even though the charge didn't stick. And the break-in occurred right after I was at the factory. Sort of a strange set of coincidences. If he's the nuts-and-bolts guy maybe he knows how to open locks.”

“Don't go walking in the woods with him,” Ranger said. And he was gone.

I OPENED THE front door to Morelli's house and Bob exploded out at me. He knocked me to one side, took the concrete and brick stairs in a single bound, and ran up the street. He stopped and turned and ran back full speed. He got to Morelli's property line, applied the brakes, hunched, and pooped.